The staff we had in this episode was rather unique in everyone seemed to switch roles.  The general director of this series Kenichi Shimizu handling the storyboard of this episode and Yamashiro Chie moving away from adapting this series into the director’s chair here.  This was an issue of placing the right staff into the right spots at developing an episode.  As I’ve got to admit this was the weakest episode of Kiseijū I have seen yet and not a great way to end the first half.

The source material to this was fantastic because it moved at such a sluggish pace but here it felt rushed as if the creators were trying to establish Kana’s end situation against the parasite by rushing Kana’s movements towards Shinichi throughout this episode to a sudden climax.  Resulting in her death.

This is a prime example of where having a New Years break can hurt a 2-cour series’ progression–  having said that I think it was the fact that the staff happen to be in all the wrong roles here in designing this episode as the manga chapters to this were fantastic and this episode seemed loose because of it.

Shinichi has constantly told Kana to stay away from the people that she is able to notice with her perception abilities but I felt like this was over emphasized here to great lengths.  However one good point of this episode is that Migi hasn’t changed all that much from previous episodes in that he is still very weary of Shinichi interacting with other humans in questioning whether or not the truth should be brought up about his hand and the other parasites.  Its a reoccurring theme that has played out since the third episode and cannot shake this idea that more people will die from it.

More over Shinichi and Migi do learn about the group that Goto is somewhat leading in trying to control food sourcing.  This turns out to be a smart move to shift the plot in the middle of the episode away from all the focus on Kana.  Keeping in mind that what happens to Kana here takes a toll on Shinichi and ultimately brings up a theme that this show has been asking since his mother stabbed him in the heart.  What is it that makes us human?  To signify this point even more is the affect it has on Mitsuo and how he has been unable to tell Kana how he feels about her.  He likes her and its quite noticeable to the viewer but not so much to Kana as she is obsessed with Shinichi and his peculiarity.  This was a nice touch to add as this first half arrives to a stopping point.

The animation was top notch here and as rushed as this episode had been the team over at Madhouse did a wonderful job at modernizing a story that is around 27 years old.  Especially when Shinichi ran through that parasite and snatched his heart, such fluid animation!

OVERALL IMPRESSION: 7/10

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